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27 March 2011

ASCD 2011: Sunday Workshop Worship

It was suggested to me by another member of the press/blogging community (*cough*) that following my "Live. Nude. Notes." post (which is driving the search engines wild), that I title this one "Barely Legal Coverage of the ASCD Conference." But considering that my day began riding the bus to the conference with a bunch of nuns clutching their lattes, perhaps today is one that should be devoted to contemplation and reflection at the altar of staff development.

In the morning, I started out in 21st Century Skills for a 20th Century Curriculum with Bruce Taylor (from the National Opera) and Liz Eder (from the Smithsonian). An excellent start to the day (you can download my notes here). I was interested in this session mainly because of the presenters. It's not often that you get arts educators---especially ones from outside the K-12 system---talking about technology. They were off to a fabulous start, but I was so enthused by the description of this session (which started 30 minutes later), I snuck out. Big mistake. The presentation started out to be rather promising---not many people are talking about how to use interactive whiteboards in a student centered way. And then, there was a parade of demos. Argh.

The afternoon was better. I attended Fisher and Frey's session on Responding When Students Don't Get It. (my notes and their PowerPoint, flowchart, and questioning guide). These were presenters well-skilled in communicating with an audience. I have read their books, but really enjoyed the opportunity to engage again with the ideas and talk about them with Jason and Jen. I also found it interesting how powerful it is to look at samples of teaching, even in an arena-style presentation. Fisher and Frey did a fabulous job building our background knowledge in order to apply their work to the videos. Very impressive---I'm a total convert now.

My final session was Visual Literacy: Learning Content and Skills with Pictures by Mark Newman and Donna Ogle. (Click the links to download my notes and their handout.) This session was also outstanding. I love the simple strategies and methods they suggested to help students use visuals in more constructive ways. A truly excellent way to end Day Two of Learning.

Tonight, I am off to a reception for the ASCD Conference Scholars (including yours truly) to imbibe some holy water...then back to the room to run through my presentation a time or two. I present first thing Monday morning (8:30 a.m.). And at high noon...I'm off to Skywalker Ranch. (Squee!)